Patricia Billings
 | The topic of this article may not meet Wikipedia's notability guideline for biographies. (May 2018) |
Patricia Billings | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Born | 1926 Clinton City, Missourri |
| Notable work | Geobond |
Patricia Billings (b. 1926) is a sculptor, inventor and businesswoman. She invented Geobond, the world's first useful replacement for asbestos.[citation needed]
Early life and education
Patricia Billings was born in 1926 in Clinton City, Missouri to a farmer and his wife.[1] She married a salesman and began working as a medical technologist and studying fungal and bacterial diseases at Kansas City Junior College.[1] She left that job in 1947 when she and the salesman divorced.[1]
In 1956 she began studying art at Amarillo College.[2][3] She enjoyed plaster of Paris sculptures.[2] In 1964 she opened a store in Kansas City where she sold many of her sculptures.[3] She sculpted a swan and after she finished, it collapsed and broke into pieces. She then decided to make a substance that could have saved her sculpture.[4]
Career
Eight years later she came up with Geobond. She sent a 10-inch statue to a scientist who recognized the substance's worth.[1]s
She turned into a product called Geobond. It resists shock, fire and is non-toxic. Geobond was patented in 1997. The resulting company, Geobond International, remains an intimate 13 employee company in Kansas City, Missouri.[1]
References
- ^ a b c d e "Her Big Break". PEOPLE.com. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
- ^ a b "Patricia Billings | Lemelson-MIT Program". lemelson.mit.edu. Retrieved 2018-03-30.
- ^ a b Vare, Ethlie Ann. (2002). Patently female : from AZT to TV dinners : stories of women inventors and their breakthrough ideas. Ptacek, Greg. New York: Wiley. ISBN 0471023345. OCLC 47183698.
- ^ "Inventricity.com | UK/International – help and advice for inventors". Inventricity.com | UK/International – help and advice for inventors. Retrieved 2018-03-30.